Earth and Space SciencesAnnual Report 2015

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Measuring sea level in a unique wayThe new tide gauge station at the Onsala Space Observatory was inaugurated on September 17.

GP, Ny teknik, Kungsbacka-Posten, TV4, P4 Göteborg – September

Dear Reader,

Gunnar Elgered, Head of Department

Production: Dept. of Earth & Space Sciences, Chalmers Printed by Danagård LiTHO, 2016. Copies: 750

Welcome back — this is the tenth consecutive year that our department is producing an annual report of this specific type. Obviously, with more than one hundred hard working full time employees it is not possible to show you the complete picture. Instead we try to give an overall summary, including selected results, hoping they will be of interest to you.

Some highlights that have occurred during the year:

– we congratulate Wouter Vlemmings, who was appointed full professor in Radio Astronomy on the 1st of November;

– the optical remote sensing group installed a monitoring station for measuring the emission from ships at the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark;

– the construction began of the concrete foundations for the twin telescopes at the observatory;

– the super tide gauge station at the observatory was inaugurated (see next page);

– with financial support from the Chalmers University of Technology Foundation we started to produce two “Massive Open Online Courses” (MOOCs);

– the group for advanced receiver development installed two new receivers, one in the 20 m telescope in Onsala and one in the APEX telescope in Chile.

Please continue reading about these and many more activities.

Press ClippingsSwedish instrument has found water in space

Scientists have found water vapour in space by using

the Swedish instrument Sepia.

Dagens Nyheter – November

Here’s the Cigar Galaxy in new detail

An international group of radio astronomers

led by Chalmers has acquired the sharpest

astronomy picture so far at long wavelengths.

The picture is taken with the LOFAR telescope.

Expressen – January

An extremely powerful magnetic field close

to a supermassive black hole

Astronomers have peeled away most of the

gas and dust enshrouding a monster black hole,

taking a close look at the giant that lies some 68

thousand light-years away.

El Mundo – April

Stardust in young galaxy surprises scientistsOne of the most distant galaxies observed contained much more dust compared to what was believed to be possible.

GP – March

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ContentsFirst Degree & Master’s Studies .................................4Bachelor´s Thesis Reports ............................................5Master’s Thesis Reports ................................................5Master´s Programmes ....................................................6Doctoral Programme ......................................................8Doctoral Dissertations ...................................................8Licentiates.........................................................................9Advanced Receiver Development .............................10Global Environmental Measurements and Modelling ........................................................................11Optical Remote Sensing .............................................12Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy ..........................13 Radar Remote Sensing ...............................................14Space Geodesy and Geodynamics .........................15Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics .........................16Onsala Space Observatory ........................................18Publications ....................................................................20Public Outreach/Press Clippings..............................24Facts and Figures .........................................................25Organisation ...................................................................26

A new state-of-the-art tide gauge station was established at the Onsala Space Observatory. A goal for the observations, at the fundamental geodetic station, is to measure and model variations in the Earth’s crust at the millimetre level. This implies, for example, that loading effects on the crust due to varying masses in the atmosphere and in the ocean must be measured and understood. The amplitude and phase variations in the local sea level are too complicated to be interpolated using data from the existing nearby tide gauge stations in Ringhals and in Gothenburg. The long term goal is to have continuous time series of sea level observations with an accuracy of a few millimetres. This called for the construction of a new tide gauge station at the observatory. The site was designed in a collaboration with the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). It has been in continuous operation since the summer of 2015. SMHI participates in the data quality check and archiving, thereby securing that the data are suitable for use in future geodynamic research as well as being a high quality station in the Swedish observational network of the sea level. Photo: Lars Wennerbäck

The Cover

Rolf Brennerfelt (right), Director General of the Swedish

Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, and Mats Viberg (left),

Vice President of Chalmers University of Technology inaugurate the

new tide gauge station at the observatory on September 17.

Photo: Ulf Christensen, SMHI

The construction team of the tide gauge station. From the left Ronny Wingdén, Christer Hermansson, Henrik Lindh, Jan Karaskuru, Lars Wennerbäck and Jonas Wahlbom. Photo: Ulf Christensen, SMHI

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First Degree and Master’s Studies

Magnus Thomasson, Vice Head of Department and responsible for the undergraduate teaching

The department is active at several levels of teach-ing: we give courses for students at the Chalmers’ Foundation Year, the three-year engineering pro-gramme in Electrical Engineering and five-year master of engineering programmes in Electri-cal Engineering, Automation and Mechatronics Engineering, and Engineering Physics. Most of our courses are at the master’s level, and many of them are also open to students at University of Gothenburg.

In 2015, the department was responsible for more than 20 courses at Chalmers, plus thesis projects at the bachelor’s and master’s level. Our teachers also participated in courses given by other departments. The subjects range from basic electrical engineering to courses closely related to our research in, e.g., astrophysics, remote sensing, receiver development, and plasma physics. An important subject is measurement techniques. We have our own laboratory, which is used exclusively for teaching and where students get hands-on ex-perience with measurement instruments. Also the instruments at Onsala Space Observatory are used in several courses. One example is the small radio telescope SALSA, which astronomy students use to observe atomic hydrogen gas in the Milky Way.

A Foundation YearPhysics, part BPhysics project (parts of the course)

Engineering programmesElectrical engineeringElectrical engineering projectTelecommunicationDegree project in Earth and Space Sciences

Master of Engineering programmes, year 1–3Bachelor’s thesis in Earth and Space SciencesElectric circuits and electric power (part of the course)Engineering measurements (for Automation and Mechatronics Engineering)Engineering measurements (for Electrical Engineering)Environmental measurement techniquesHigh frequency electromagnetic wavesPlanetary sciences

Master’s courses and equivalentActive microwave circuits (parts of the course)Astrophysical dynamicsElectromagnetic waves and componentsExperimental physics: spectroscopic methods (parts of the course)Galaxies and observational cosmologyImage processingMaster’s thesis in Earth and Space SciencesMicrowave engineering (parts of the course)Millimetre wave and THz technologyModern astrophysicsPlasma physics with applicationsRemote sensingRadar systems and applicationsRadioastronomical techniques and interferometrySatellite positioningSatellite communicationsSpace science and techniques Stellar physicsThe interstellar medium and star formation

Chalmers courses given during 2015(NB: many of the master’s courses were also open to students at the University of Gothenburg)

The department is involved in two master’s pro-grammes: Physics and Astronomy (together with

the Department of Fundamental Physics, from

2016 the Department of Physics) and Wireless, Photonics and Space Engineering (with the De-partment of Microtechnology and Nanoscience).

Two of the department’s teachers are also respon-sible for education programmes at Chalmers: Cathy Horellou is Director of the Master’s Programme in Physics and Astronomy, and Arto Heikkilä is Head of the Programme in Electrical Engineering.

Our teaching cooperation with the Department of Physics at the University of Gothenburg (GU) was strengthened in 2015, with courses at GU at the bachelor’s level in basic astronomy and on the so-lar system given by teachers from our department.

Towards the end of 2015, many teachers from the department’s Earth science groups were busy preparing for two MOOCs to be given in Febru-ary and March of 2016. MOOCs means “Massive Open Online Courses”, i.e., courses given on the web and open for anyone in the world. This is fur-ther described on the page Public Outreach.

Arto Heikkilä, Head of the Programme in Electrical Engineering

Cathy Horellou,Director of the Master’s Programme in Physics and Astronomy

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Master’s Thesis Reports

Bachelor’s Thesis Reports

Maryam JamaliSoft model approximation of microwave scattering properties of ice particlesSupervisor: Patrick Eriksson

Magnus LindgrenA 1296 MHz Earth-Moon-Earth communication systemSupervisor: Gunnar Elgered

Theresa NilssonEvolution of star-forming galaxies in the early Universe, analysed with SED fitting from optical to far-infrared Supervisors: Kirsten Kraiberg Knudsen and Guillaume Drouart

Ken RyrboTurbulent transport in fusion plasmasSupervisor: Hans Nordman

Ronny VidekullEvaluate and develop high-performance GPS navigation using free GPS softwareSupervisor: Thomas Hobiger

Jonas WahlbomEvaluation of sea level sensors at the Onsala Space ObservatorySupervisor: Gunnar Elgered

Weihua WangIonospheric disturbance on GNSS receivers and other systemsSupervisor: Jan Johansson

Göran ÅhlingModernization of fluorescent lighting with LEDSupervisor: Gunnar Elgered

The antenna of the 1296 MHz Earth-Moon-Earth

communication system built by Magnus Lindgren.

Magnus also took the photo.

A spectrum with all observations of C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) made between Nov. 16 and Dec. 15, 2013 at the Onsala Space Observatory showing the three rotational transitions J = 1 – 0 of HCN.

Frida Almqvist, Oskar Bohlin, Katrin Ekström, Anton Mårtensson, Eirik SeljelidDevelopment of models for studies of air pollutionSupervisor: David Simpson

Viktor Tengnäs, Andreas Perme, Filippa Hallqvist, Richard LanEstimation of the star formation rate of galaxies in the young UniverseSupervisors: Kirsten Kraiberg Knudsen and Lukas Lindroos

Astrid Olivefors, Philip Källström, Elin Tegehall, Alexander LevinssonAnalysis of HCN emission from Comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy)Supervisors: Eva Wirström and Mikael Lerner

6Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden, Phone +46 31 772 10 00, chalmers.se

Master’s programme

CarEEr oPPorTUniTiESThe skills in problem solving and advanced

experimental techniques, as well as collaboration

and presentation skills, acquired in this program are

highly valued both in the academic world and on the

job market.

Previous students have found positions in for

example industrial research, consulting, product

and production development, management and

administration, financial analysis.

The interested student will also be well prepared

to enter a doctoral programme at Chalmers or at

another university in both Sweden and worldwide.

SPECiaLiZaTionThrough the choice of elective courses it is possible

to specialize in theoretical and/or experimental

aspects of particle physics, subatomic physics or

astrophysics.

UniQUE FEaTUrESClose connections to leading research laboratories

like the accelerator facilities at CERN and GSI, and

the Swedish National Facility for Radio Astronomy:

Onsala Space Observatory.

From elementary particles to a complex universe

Understanding the basic laws of physics has been a fascinating problem since the birth of modern science. It is of great intrinsic interest and also forms the basis of other branches of science. Trying to probe the smallest structures of matter and the largest structures of the Universe also drives the development of new technologies.

Physics and Astronomy is intended for students with a keen interest in either the theoretical or experimental aspects of front-line physics and astronomy.

The airborne radar system CARABAS

PHYSiCS anD aSTronoMY

Orionnebulosan

Autumn

Autumn

Spring

Spring

Quantum Mechanics

Electro-dynamics

ModernAstrophysics

Advanced Quantum

Mechanics

Gravitationand

Cosmology

InterstellarMedium &

Star Format.

ExperimentalPhysics:

SpectroscopicMethods

Master’s Thesis30 or 60 Credits

Quantum Field Theory

Phys. Beyondthe Standard

ModelStringTheory

AstroparticlePhysics

Modern SubatomicDetectors

AstrophysicalDynamics

Advanced Subatomic

Physics

PlasmaPhysics

Galaxies& Observat.Cosmology

Elective courses

Elective courses

Elective courses

Elective courses

Elective courses

Year 1

Year 2

Elective courses

Semi-compulsory courses, select 4–8 of 12The order of the courses might be changed.

Master’s programme given

by us and the Department

of Fundamental Physics

(from 2016 Department of

Physics).

7Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden, Phone +46 31 772 10 00, chalmers.se

Master’s programme

CarEEr oPPorTUniTiESThe programme provides a master’s education for a future career in engineering branches that rely heavily on electromagnetic waves, e.g. telecommunication, automotive electronics, space engineering, medical applications of microwaves and photonics, remote sensing, solid state lighting, environmental monitoring, navigation, and radio astronomy. You will find career opportunities in industry, at universities, or at research institutes.

CoUrSESThe programme starts with five compulsory courses. Through semi-compulsory courses, students can specialize in wireless, photonics or space engineering, or a combination thereof. To provide opportunities to study related fields, there is also a wide range of elective courses.

UniQUE FEaTUrESThe programme offers a unique opportunity to study a combination of subjects where Chalmers has world‐class facilities: Onsala Space Observatory with radio telescopes and equipment to study the Earth and its atmosphere, the Nanofabrication Laboratory with a clean room for micro and nanotechnology, and state‐of‐the‐art photonics and microwave measurement equipment in research laboratories.

WirELESS, PHoToniCS anD SPaCE EnGinEErinG

Electromagnetic waves in research and everyday life

Wireless, Photonics and Space Engineering with their many applications are large industries and strong research fields both in Sweden and worldwide.

The master’s programme will prepare you for a career in this field through studies of wireless and optical communication components and systems, RF and microwave engineering, photonics (phenomena and applications utilizing photons), and space science and techniques.

The airborne radar system CARABASEleven feed antenna for radio telescopes

The research satellite Odin

Electron beam lithography inChalmers clean roomPhotonics laboratoryDiffractive optics

Spring

Master’s Thesis

Elective courses

SatellitePositioning

SatelliteCommunic.

Fiber OpticalCommunic.

Opto-electronics

Mm-wave &THz Techn.

Design ofMMIC

Semiconduct. Devices

Elective courses

Year 2

Autumn Spring

Electromag-netic Waves

andComponents

MicrowaveEngineering

Space Science

andTechniques

Fundamentalsof

Photonics

Wireless andPhotonics System

Engineering Remote Sensing

Active Micro-wave Circuits

Year 1

AntennaEngineering

LaserEngineering

Radar Systems

andApplications

GaN MMIC X-band transceiver fabricated at Chalmers

Semi-compulsary courses, select 3–7 of 12

Master’s programme given

by us and the Department

of Microtechnology and

Nanoscience.

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Parisa Yadranjee AghdamCharacterisation of the Specific Capacitance of Superconducting Tunnel JunctionsSeptemberSupervisor: Alexey Pavalotsky

Emma AnderssonOn the use of aerosol optical properties and satellite-retrieved trace gases in regional air quality modellingNovemberSupervisor: Michael Kahnert

Licentiates

Doctoral Programme

Donal Murtagh, Deputy Head of Department and responsible for the doctoral programme.

The doctoral programme is organised as the research school Radio and Space Science. One of the three specialisations; Astronomy, Environmental Science, and Electrical Engineering may be added to reflecting the diversity of the research carried out at the department. The school strives to give the students a thorough understanding of the research area they have chosen with in depth studies in a particular subject. The students should also take part in some teaching activities as well at other de-partmental work with the aim of achieving Chalmers goals for post-graduate education. There are cur-rently about 27 research students in the programme — most of whom are employed by the department, although a few have positions in industry or at other institutes. During the past year 5 PhD degrees and 4 licentiate degrees have been awarded, while 7 new post-graduate students were recruited.

We also strive to engage the PhD students in the department and have organised PhD-student fora once per year. This years was a full day in May. Here we discussed such subjects as the results of the introduction of new students, the personnel questionnaire, generic and transferable skills courses and how to spread knowledge, such as good programming, among each other.

Niklas Falstad Water and hydroxyl in luminous infrared galaxies: Spectroscopic observations and modellingJanuarySupervisor: Susanne Aalto

Daniel TegneredGyrokinetic simulations of turbulent particle and heat transport in tokamaksMaySupervisor: Pär Strand

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Doctoral Dissertations

Jörg BeeckenRemote Measurements of Gas and Particulate Matter Emissions from Individual ShipsFebruarySupervisor: Johan Mellqvist

Isaac MoradiEnhancing Tropospheric Humidity Data Records from Satellite Microwave and Radiosonde SensorsMarchSupervisor: Patrick Eriksson

Vladimir CondeApplications of DOAS, FTIR and MultiGas for studies of evolving volcanic activityAprilSupervisor: Bo Galle

Jan TorgrimssonFactorized Geometrical Autofocus for Synthetic Aperture Radar ProcessingJuneSupervisor: Lars Ulander

Ole Martin ChristensenMesospheric Measurements using Microwave SpectroscopySeptemberSupervisor: Patrick Eriksson

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Staff

Victor BelitskyVincent DesmarisAndrey ErmakovSven-Erik FermMathias FredrixonIgor Lapkin Denis MeledinAlexey PavolotskySareh Shafiee (Feb-)Magnus StrandbergErik Sundin

Doctoral students

Parisa AghdamSascha KrauseHawal Marouf Rashid

Research group leader Victor Belitsky

Advanced Receiver Development

ALMA band 5 full production projectAt the beginning of 2013, GARD was awarded a contract to build Band 5 receivers frequency band from 163 GHz to 211 GHz for the entire Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The project aims to produce 75 receiver cartridges in collaboration with the Nederlandse Onderzoekschool Voor Astronomie (NOVA), NL, and is funded by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at the level of about 13 M€ for 5 years. ALMA Band 5 European Consortium collaborates with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), USA, providing the local oscillator system and warm cartridge assembly. By the end of 2015, in total 13 Band 5 receiver cartridges have been delivered to the ALMA project and the first fringes were achieved.

The Group for Advanced Receiver Development (GARD) is a research and engineering group working on Terahertz technologies and instrumentation. GARD research activities are focused on superconducting electronics, material science and thin-film processing. The results and experience from the research facilitate development and building of state-of-the-art instruments used in radio astronomy and environmental science.

APEX projectGARD has performed four missions to the APEX telescope, which included installation of the new receiver SEPIA (Swedish-ESO PI Instrument for APEX) and repair of the SHeFI (Swedish Heterodyne Facility Instrument) Band 1 mixer.

The SEPIA receiver is a completely new instrument that allows using ALMA receiver cartridges (up to 3) and consists of a cryostat and a pre-production ALMA Band 5 receiver cartridge, built under an EC FP6 funded project, and upgraded by GARD. The SEPIA Band 5 receiver was commissioned in 2015. ESO has contributed to SEPIA with hardware (local oscillators and warm cartridge assemblies purchased from NRAO) and the commissioning.

The SEPIA receiver covers the frequency range 158–211 GHz. The para-H2O (313–220) line at 183 GHz lies in the middle of Band 5. It is one of a few H2O lines that can be observed from the surface of the Earth. Introduction of the SEPIA Band 5 receiver at APEX was marked by coordinated press releases from ESO and Chalmers.

A new 2-channel mm-wave receiver for the OSO 20 m telescopeGARD has designed and built the new 2-channel receiver for the 20 m telescope at Onsala. The receiver itself was installed and commissioned. The work has been carried out in extensive collaboration with the electronics lab at the observatory site. The receiver covers two bands: the 4 mm band where state-of-the art amplifiers from NRAO are used and the 3 mm band with 2SB SIS mixers from Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM) which was available for observations already during the 2015 season. The receiver has a very compact design suitable for the tight space of the antenna cabin. GARD has made a new optical design for this receiver with a built-in calibration for both channels and an innovative optical switch for fast switching of observations on and off the source.

GARD engineers Mathias Fredrixon, Denis Meledin and Igor Lapkin at the APEX telescope checking the tertiary optics of the SEPIA receiver before the installation. Photo: Sascha Krause

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What is the weight of clouds around the world? We can answer this question quite well for clouds consisting of liquid droplets, but for ice clouds the answer is much more uncertain. This is true bothregarding our general knowledge and how well satellites can estimate clouds weights. Simulations show that one way to improve the accuracy ofremote measurements of cloud ice masses is to include sub-millimetre (sub-mm) wavelengths. We are highly active in the development of this observation approach. The long-term motivation of the efforts is the Ice Cloud Imager (ICI), that when launched around 2022 will become the first sub-mm satellite sensor dedicated to cloud observations.

We have contributed to ICI by practically demonstrating some basic aspects of the measurement approach, using Odin-SMR. The SMR instrument operates at similar frequencies as ICI but uses a different observation geometry. This means that another data source is needed to fully test out the future ICI retrievals. The airborne ISMAR (International Sub-Millimetre Airborne Radiometer) has been developed for this purpose and first field campaign data were recorded during the last year. We contribute to the ISMAR project in several ways. First of all, ISMAR data are mainly analysed using the ARTS (Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator) forward model, where we are one of the two main groups developing that software. Using ARTS we have provided simulations that help to analyse the calibration accuracy and polarisation response of ISMAR. However, our main responsibility is to develop a cloud and precipitation retrievalalgorithm. The main limitation of the retrievals

Global Environmental Measurements and Modelling

Staff

Patrick ErikssonHannah Imhof( Oct-)Ashley Jones (Nov-)Michael Kahnert (adj. prof.)Donal MurtaghKristell PerotJoel Rasch (-Jan)David Simpson (adj. prof.)

Doctoral students

Emma AnderssonOle Martin Christensen (-Sep)Robin Ekelund (May-)Joonas Kiviranta (Aug-)Julia Ringsby (Nov-)Kazutoshi Sagi

Research group leader Donal Murtagh

The Global Environmental Measurements and Modelling group focuses on the production and interpretation of global data-sets. To a large extent these originate from the Swedish led Odin satellite project, where we are the main data processing centre for the sub-millimetre radiometer instrument providing the atmospheric community with quality assessed data. On the scientific side we have continued with studies of the chemical and dynamical processes affecting the atmosphere. As in earlier annual reports, we chose to highlight one or two aspects of this research each year.

is that the scattering properties of cloud ice and snow are poorly represented at present, and to improve these properties is currently our main line of development.

Two blobs of ozone loss We have now analysed the entire 14 year data record of ozone observations using our data assimilation technique that allows us to determine chemical ozone loss. The technique works by running parallel model runs. One where the initial ozone field at the beginning of the winter is simply allowed to be transported by the winds (passive ozone) and one where we adjust the model in a statistical manner with each new ozone measurement. By subtracting the passive ozone from the active ozone we get the chemical loss separatred from the effects of dynamics. The figure shows the degree of ozone change for the Northern hemisphere for the years 2002–2013 for altitudes from about 16 km to 30 km expressed in potential temperature. In cold winters such as 2011 you can see the loss in lower stratospheric (< 600 K) ozone resulting from chlorine chemistry while in the warmer years such as 2009 and 2013 you can see large losses between altitudes with temperatures of 600 K and 900 K at the end of the winter. The latter loss is associated with nitrogen oxides mixing in from lower latitudes or possibly by downward transport from very high altitudes.

Ozone change in the Northern hemisphere 2002–2013 (see text).

A mathematical model of one type of cloud crystal known as an aggregate.

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Optical Remote Sensing

Research group leader Bo Galle

Staff

Santiago ArellanoJörg Beecken (Mar-)Johan EkholmBo GalleJohan Mellqvist

Doctoral students

Jörg Beecken (-Feb)Vladimir Conde (-Apr)John Johansson

Volcanic gas measurementsSince 2001 we are strongly involved in develop-ing methods to quantify gas emission from active volcanoes. The EU-project NOVAC (Network for Observation of Volcanic and Atmospheric Change), coordinated by Chalmers, was initiated in fall 2005. This project aims at establishing a network of instruments for gas measurements and today comprises 27 of the most active volcanoes in the world. In 2013 a new project DECADE (Deep earth Carbon Degassing) was initiated, aiming at improving the knowledge on CO2 emis-sion from volcanoes as part of a large scale inter-national effort DCO, Deep Carbon Observatory. During 2015 we have also made significant efforts in the EU-project FUTUREVOLC on Iceland, in specific in relation to the volcanic fissure eruption at Holuhraun yielding SO2 emissions exceeding 100 000 ton/day. During the year fieldwork has been carried out on volcanoes in Iceland, Ecua-dor and Costa Rica.

Industrial hydrocarbon emissionsEmissions of hydrocarbons from oil related industrial activities constitute an important environmental problem. We have developed optical methods for quantification of emissions of hydrocarbons, NO2, SO2 and we are involved in joint European work, CEN WG 38, to standardize these techniques. We participated in the NASA Discover AQ project in Houston in 2013 and dur-ing 2014 and 2015 we have been working on these data to compare the measurements with similar ones carried out from airplanes and ground sites.

Emissions from shipsA method, for remote airborne and ground based measurements of exhaust gas emissions from ships has been developed. The aim with this system is to be able to control whether ships obey new environmental regulation within EU and the international maritime organization, IMO. During 2014 the system was rebuilt into a Navajo Piper aircraft and then the installation was certi-fied by the European Air Safety Agency. The system was used operationally during 2015 for airborne surveillance of ships around the coast of Denmark and measurements from the Great Belt Bridge, funded by Danish Environmental Protec-tion Agency. We have also carried out similar studies at Älvsborgs fästning in the ship channel of Gothenburg within the EU project CompMon. In October 2015 we participated in a ship emis-sion study in the port of Long Beach and Los Angeles, funded by the South Coast air quality management district to assess the influence of ship activities on the air quality in Los Angeles.

Stratospheric ozone depletion and satellite validationSince 1994 we are operating a high resolution FTIR for Solar spectroscopy at Harestua in southern Norway. The instrument is part of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Com-position Change, and its main purpose is to study the composition of the atmosphere in relation to climate gases and to gases that induce strato-spheric ozone loss. During 2015 regular meas-urements have been carried out, financed by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

The optical remote sensing group is working with development and application of ground-based optical remote sensing methods for atmospheric measurements. In specific we are focusing on tailoring instruments and measurement strategies to address specific measurement problems related to environmental research and monitoring needs. The work is very international and field oriented, and spans a large variety of disciplines.

Sniffer inlet at the Great Belt Bridge. More than 3000 ships were inspected during the second half of 2015. Photo: Johan Mellqvist

The ScanDOAS instrument measuring the gas emission from Holuhraun volcanic fissure eruption on Iceland. Photo: Bo Galle

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Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy

Research group leader Hans Nordman

Staff

Dan Andersson (prof. emeritus)

Yueqiang Liu (adj. prof.)

Hans Nordman

Robert Nyqvist (-Jul)

Michael Oberparleiter (Aug-)

Ola Olsson (Aug-)

Eva Palmberg (Lecturer emeritus)

Pär Strand

Doctoral students

Frida Eriksson

Daniel Tegnered

Turbulent transport and modellingThe strong gradients in temperature present in tokamak fusion plasmas provide a source of free energy that feeds instabilities over a wide range of sizes and frequencies. These instabilities in turn drive turbulence which results in large transport of heat and particles across the confining magnetic field. The large turbulent transport crucially affects the size and performance of a fusion device. Our current work is focused on realistic large scale gyrokinetic turbulence simulations of experiments at the Joint European Torus (JET), and further theoretical developments of a computationally efficient fluid model for turbulent transport.

While turbulence is responsible for most of the transport in a fusion plasma, collisions of the plasma particles and the curvature of the magnetic field also drive the usually weaker neoclassical transport. When the length scales governing them are sufficiently close, i.e. the ratio between the ion gyration radius and the pressure gradient length is not small, interaction between neoclassical and turbulent phenomena is possible. Our activity in this field focuses on studying the mechanisms of this interaction, in particular, how the neoclassical radial electric field modifies the pattern of shear flows which regulates the level of turbulent transport. Additionally, we study how the presence of the neoclassical transport channel changes the frequency and amplitude of turbulent transport bursts (avalanches, see figure).

Computational modelling of turbulent transport is very demanding, requiring the use of supercomputers. Modelling larger plasmas, e.g., ITER, with sufficient detail, and approaching the goal of predictive simulations, pushes computational demand even further. To meet these challenges, the group is also involved in developing the simulation code GENE to be able to utilize future supercomputers. Current, and future, flagship supercomputers have around 90 % of their computational power in Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) or similar accelerators.

The group Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy is focused on theoretical research on turbulent transport and energetic particle physics of burning fusion plasmas. The research is strongly integrated with the international research activities, in particular the EU and ITER program, for the realisation of fusion energy as a safe, clean, and sustainable energy source. In addition to the topic areas detailed below, the group is also promoting these research areas in the Integrated Tokamak modelling programme on the European level.

The ongoing effort is to port GENE to GPUs, targeting the Titan supercomputer, the world #2 supercomputer

Energetic particle physicsOne important objective for the next generation tokamak ITER is the study of alpha particle production, confinement and consequent heating of the main plasma. In fact, energetic particles constitute the only heating alternative beyond the Ohmic regime, but are also known to play a decisive role for plasma stability. For example, fast particles are prone to excite wave instabilities in the Alfvénic frequency range, which may subsequently lead to severely degraded alpha particle confinement and heating. Within this field, our research activity focuses on theory development and modeling of nonlinear wave-particle interaction, which is motivated by the need to assess the implications of Alfvénic activity on burning plasma scenarios and may further provide opportunities to extract information on the plasma core via comparison with diagnostic measurements.

Radial heat flux avalanche patterns in gyrokinetic simulations of ion temperature gradient turbulence. The presence of neoclassical transport (right) decreases the frequency and amplitude of events with high turbulent transport.

14

Radar Remote Sensing

Research group leader Leif Eriksson

Staff

Jan Askne (prof. emeritus)Anders Berg Gisela CarvajalLeif ErikssonMaciej SojaJan Torgrimsson (Sep-) Lars UlanderMonika Wozniak (Apr-)

Doctoral students

Wiebke Aldenhoff Erik Blomberg Anis Elyouncha (Sep-)Albert Monteith (Aug-)Jan Torgrimsson (-Aug)

Autofocus within the scope of SAR processingIn 2015 the group made great progress in the field of SAR autofocus. In close collaboration with SAAB Electronic Defence Systems, the develop-ment of the Factorized Geometrical Autofocus (FGA) algorithm advanced. The run time of the algorithm was reduced substantially and the auto-focus routine was made more robust. A method used to analyse how motion measure-ment errors affect a SAR image was also devel-oped. The strategy compares a reference geometry

to an error model to estimate the loss of focus. This approach can be employed to support the FGA algorithm and to specify requirements on the motion measurement system, i.e. regard-ing accuracy. The FGA algorithm was evaluated successfully on ultra-wideband data acquired in the VHF frequency band by the Swedish CARABAS system. Errors due to a constant accelera-tion were added to the naviga-tion data prior to processing, i.e. to simulate a drifting inertial measurement unit (without GPS support). The autofocus routine was then applied to correct the erroneous geometry, eventually producing a focused SAR image. This result demonstrates that the FGA algorithm has the capacity to relax requirements on expen-sive and export-restricted motion measurements systems. Future work will reveal if the FGA algo-rithm can be used to compensate for missing navigation data.

The objective of our research is to develop and understand advanced radar methods and their application in forestry, glaciology and oceanography. The group specialises in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and develops algorithms for SAR image formation including autofocus. Large-scale forest mapping is an important application motivated by the need for improved climate change prediction, storm-damage mitigation and sustainable management in commercial forestry. Ocean surface winds and currents, and sea ice are other applications with importance for the climate system, but also for support to ship routing and other maritime activities.

Measuring sea surface currents in SkagerrakSea surface water and anything that floats with it moves depending on the sea surface currents velocity and direction. With accurate information about the sea surface current field the drift of an oil spill can be forecasted as well as back tracked to its source, a missing person in the water might be found in time and saved, a lost container can be found and collisions be avoided and the trans-port of nutrients or hazardous substances can be estimated.

Continuous monitoring of the currents fields at Skagerrak has until recently only been provided by sparse single point measurements. This changed between September 2014 and December 2015, when our group, together with the Swedish Mete-orological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) and the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) co-operated on the installation and evaluation of two High Frequency (HF) radars at the Swedish west coast. The main purpose of this time limited instal-lation was to test possibilities to map sea surface currents and to detect ships in Skagerrak. The surface current maps produced by the com-bination of the data from both radars is currently used for validation of satellite estimates of surface current fields in our group and of forecasting models at SMHI.

Autofocus with FGA algorithm. (Top) Reference image, no errors added. (Mid) Defocused image, errors added. (Bottom) FGA image, errors cancelled out.

Example of common coverage of the two HF radars (green) installed on the West Coast of Sweden with simultaneous brightness temperature data (grey) from a satellite. radiometer.

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Staff

Gunnar Elgered

Lubomir Gradinarski (adj. assoc. prof.)

Rüdiger HaasThomas Hobiger Jan Johansson (adj. prof.)Johan Löfgren (-Jun)

Hans-Georg Scherneck

Doctoral students

Niko Kareinen

Grzegorz Klopotek (Apr-)

Carsten Rieck

(industrial student)

Joakim Strandberg (Oct-)

Space Geodesy and Geodynamics

Research group leader Rüdiger Haas

Our main interests are geodynamic phenomena and atmospheric processes. We study e.g. deformations of the Earth’s crust due to mass redistribution, inter- and intra-plate tectonics, loading effects, and variations in the Earth’s orientation and rotation. We also study spatial and temporal variations of water vapour in the atmosphere. We address these research topics using a variety of observational techniques together with theoretical modelling.

Inter-continental frequency transferObservations from the Global Positioning Sytem (GPS) and Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) were used to investigate the potential of these techniques to compare highly accurate fre-quency standards over inter-continental distances. Using the two techniques individually, frequency-link instabilities at the level of 10-14 to 10-15 can be achieved on inter-continental baselines and averaging times of one day. However, when using a combined analysis approach of both techniques together, a small but consistent improvement for the frequency transfer of up to 10 % is achieved, in particular for averaging periods of more than 3000 s.

Automated near real-time earth rotationWe studied the possibilities to perform an auto-mated analysis of VLBI data on one long east-west oriented baseline to derive the earth rotation angle in near real-time. In particular, the impact of differ-ent apriori data on the accuracy of the results was investigated. The study shows that it is possible to analyse VLBI data in fully automated mode to pro-vide the earth rotation angle with very low latency. However, in order to guarantee the earth rotation angle with an accuracy of better than 20 microsec-onds, it is necessary to use a priori polar motion data that is not older than 12 hours.

Development of the GNSS courseA new lab exercise for the research group’s mas-ter’s course in satellite positioning was developed. The topic of this exercise is real-time positioning with GNSS support and in particular so-called real-time kinematic systems. For this purpose, a small drone was purchased that can be flown with manual control, but can also follow autonomously a pre-programmed flight path when making use of GNSS measurements. The latter flight mode can be realized either by standard single point positioning or using differential real-time kinematic observa-tions. On-board sensors can collect data along the flight path, which can then be used by the course participants in lab exercises.

The GNSS-controlled drone used for exercises in the research group’s master’s course in satellite positioning. Photo: Joakim Strandberg

Influence of the accuracy of a priori polar motion information on the accuracy of the earth-rotation angle determination (see text).

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Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics

Research group leader Susanne Aalto

Staff

Susanne AaltoPer BjerkeliJohn BlackRoy Booth (prof. emeritus)Francesco CostagliolaGuillaume Drouart (-Oct)Lulu Fan (-Mar)Malcolm Fridlund (affil.prof.)Arto HeikkiläÅke Hjalmarson (prof. emeritus)Cathy HorellouSuzy Jones (Aug-)Kay JusttanontTheo KhouriKirsten Kraiberg KnudsenSabine König (Sep-)Boy Lankhaar (Nov-)René LiseauRobin Lombaert (Aug-)Tuomas LunttilaMatthias Maercker Eamon O’Gorman Hans OlofssonCarina PerssonAlessandro RomeoGustaf Rydbeck (prof. emeritus)Magnus ThomassonArnold Van Ardenne (adj. prof.) (-Mar)Wouter VlemmingsAnders Winnberg (prof. emeritus)Eva Wirström

Doctoral students

Daria Dall’Olio Taïssa DanilovichNiklas FalstadJudit FogasyMitra HajigholiLukas LindroosMaryam SaberiEskil VareniusSofia WallströmJoachim Wiegert

The interstellar medium, star and planet formation We have observed emission from H2O, NH3 and N2H+ towards high-mass starless cores and proto-stellar objects in two Galactic fields, each contain-ing objects in different evolutionary stages. The molecules are sensitive to different physical and chemical conditions, and the detections show com-plex line shapes from the protostellar envelopes, molecular outflows and infall. The chemical char-acteristics of massive cold clumps, and the com-parison with those of their low-mass counterparts, can provide crucial clues about the exact role that chemistry plays in differentiating the early phases of low-mass and high-mass star formation.We have also investigated the ratio of nuclear spin types, the ortho-to-para ratio of NH2 in interstellar gas using unique observations obtained with the Herschel-HIFI instrument.

The current paradigm of star formation through accretion discs, and magneto-hydrodynamically driven gas ejections, predicts the development of collimated outflows. Using VLA observations we have shown that the massive protostar W75N(B)-VLA 2 has a thermal ionized wind that has evolved in 18 years from a compact source into a collimated elongated one.

Evolved and dying starsALMA has given us the sharpest view ever of the famous double star Mira. For the very first time at millimetre wavelengths, we have been able to resolve the stellar disc of the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star Mira A as well as the wind of its companion star. In addition to size and tem-perature, the observations surprisingly revealed a strong flare, of more than 10,000 K, at the surface. Such stellar activity is not expected on an AGB star and could indicate that magnetic activity is an important factor in expelling vast amounts of material into the stellar wind.

We also observed the shell and circumstellar environment around the evolved star R Sculptoris. For the first time we were able to observationally

Our research covers a wide range of topics from planetary atmospheres, through the early evolution of stars and planets, to late stages of stellar evolution, the physics and chemistry of interstellar and intergalactic matter, the structure and evolution of galaxies, and cosmology. We carry out observations both at radio frequencies and in other parts of the spectrum. We do theoretical research and develop numerical simulations and models of complex systems like galaxies and gas clouds and help to develop future telescopes on the ground and in space. Here we present a few examples of the group’s recent results.

describe how a star loses mass during a thermal pulse (which drives the chemical evolution of Sun-like stars).

HD101584 is a bright object in the sky, but its true nature has been unclear. ALMA CO observa-tions are now revealing details on this system as a binary where a dying red giant star has captured a neighbouring companion. The “Fried Egg Nebula” is the mass-loss envelope of a rare kind of star called a yellow hypergiant. Millimeter-wave ob-servations of CO show that the mass-loss has been irregular and asymmetrical.

Stellar mass is one of the fundamental parameters governing the stellar evolution from its birth to its death and once a star evolves off the main sequence, it is extremely difficult to determine. The heterodyne instrument (HIFI) aboard the Herschel Space Observatory was used to observe red giants which are losing mass at a very high rate, making the central star invisible due to the large amount of dust produced in the circumstellar envelopes. By observing isotopologues of water towards red giants, we were able to determine the lower limit of the initial mass of a number of stars.

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ALMA maps of CO emission from the evolved star R Sculptoris, showing signs of intense mass-loss a few thousand years ago.

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Hot, dust-obscured galaxies (Hot DOGs) are believed to be distant galaxies in a brief transition between intense starburst phase and a non-obscured quasar phase in massive galaxy mergers. Sub-mm observations have found them to be active galac-tic nuclei (AGN)-dominated, with extremely high luminosities of LIR > 1014 L

e

. The spectral energy distribution of their emission suggests that it is dominated by hot dust.

To allow for the study (and statistics) of very faint emission from the distant Universe we have deve-loped an algorithm for stacking of interferometric data.

The chemistry of the very distant Universe can be studied through absorption lines towards distant quasars. The so-called inert elements like argon can form molecular bonds when they are ionized. Sensitive absorption line observations with ALMA revealed that the ArH+ molecule exists in the inter-stellar medium of a distant galaxy.

GalaxiesALMA and Herschel are powerful instruments for studying galaxy evolution using molecules to trace dynamical, chemical, and physical condi-tions. These tools are particularly important when probing extremely dust-enshrouded galaxy nuclei that are not accessible by optical tracers. We have pioneered techniques to use vibrationally excited transitions of HCN to peek inside the thick veils of dust hiding the true nature of extremely obscured galaxy nuclei. The emission reveals a previously unknown growth spur of the supermassive black hole and its surrounding stellar component. These nuclei may also drive massive, cold molecular winds that may empty the nuclear regions of gas and dust in a few tens of Myr. With the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer telescope we stud-ied for the first time the chemistry of the molecu-lar outflow of the quasar Mrk231.

With ALMA the field of extragalactic astrochem-istry is undergoing a revolution. We find that the luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG) NGC4418 has chemical properties that are very different from normal star forming galaxies. Herschel observa-tions of the LIRG Zw049 reveal unusually high H2O abundances tracing a compact region near the nucleus excited either by a growing supermas-sive black hole or an extremely compact burst of star formation. We also use highly excited CO, OH, and ionized carbon [C II] to investigate the evolutionary status of star formation in nearby star forming galaxies.

We study the effects of cosmic ray particles in galaxies, including nuclear processes, ionization of interstellar matter, and the diffuse glow of gamma rays.

Applications of dynamical models and diagnostics, developed by the group, to observations of nearby disc galaxies reveal that gravitational instability, radial inflow and disc heating have driven the formation of the inner structures and the dynamics of molecular gas.

The high redshift UniverseWe have discovered one of the most distant galax-ies found so far. While only a very small number of such galaxies are known, the largest difference is that this galaxy, A1689-zD1, is very dusty. In fact it is the only one of the normal star-forming galax-ies found during the first billion years after the big bang that has a proper detection of dust (and gas). With an estimated age of only a few hundred million years, the time for dust production similar to local galaxies is insufficient, so the question remains what are the dust production mecha-nisms. We estimate the dust mass to be similar to that of our Milky Way, while the stellar mass is only a few per cent of the Milky Way.

Optical image of the galaxy cluster Abell 1689, which is gravitationally lensing the background galaxy A1689-zD1 by a factor ~9.5. The insets zoom further to A1689-zD1 and the red (and green) color channel shows near-infrared light. The contours show the ALMA observations of the thermal dust emission. Credits: Hubble Space Telescope image from ESA/NASA/ESO; the zoom-in from K. Knudsen.

ALMA view of a ring of hot and dense molecular gas tracingthe intense star formation in the nucleus of the luminous galaxy NGC1614. The ring is 400 pc (about 1300 light years) across.

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Onsala Space Observatory

Staff

Per BergmanBhushan Billade Per BjörklundTobia CarozziSimon CaseyJohn ConwayRobert CummingElvire De Beck Lars ErikssonIngemar Evertsson (Dec-)Magnus DahlgrenJens Dahlström (Jun-)Jonas Flygare Peter ForkmanRoger HammargrenChristoffer Haraldsson (-Jul)Leif HelldnerChrister Hermansson (-Feb)Karl-Åke JohanssonJan KaraskuruUlf KylenfallMikael LernerMichael LindqvistIván Martí-VidalSebastien MullerMichael OlbergHenrik OlofssonSimon Olvhammar (Aug-)Miroslav PantaleevGlenn PerssonLars PetterssonJonas WahlbomLars WennerbäckRonny WingdénBo Wästberg (Mar-)Jun Yang

Staff shared with research groups

Gunnar ElgeredRüdiger HaasThomas Hobiger Hans-Georg ScherneckMagnus ThomassonWouter Vlemmings

A majority of the Group for Advanced Receiver Development (p. 10) is also part of the observatory.

The 20 m telescopeA new receiver for the 4 mm band, 67–87 GHz, was installed in the autumn 2015. The 4 mm band is not available generally to European astrono-mers and barely covered anywhere in the world. The band around 4 mm contains a rich collection of molecular-line transitions, including those of many deuterated species. This new receiver (as the 3 mm receiver installed in 2014) is dual polari-sation sideband separating, each sideband having a bandwidth of 4 GHz. The receiver temperature is approximately 50–60 K (single-sideband).

A special call for science verification observa-tions with the new 4 mm receiver, issued late 2015 and requiring a principal investigator with a Swedish affiliation, attracted a large interest with 10 proposals requesting observations of, e.g., circumstellar masers and star-forming regions.About 20 single-dish projects were observed with the 20 m telescope in 2015, with topics ranging from star formation and evolved stars, through molecules and turbulence in Galactic interstellar gas, to properties of molecular gas in other galax-ies. The 20 m telescope was also used for VLBI observations by the astronomical and geodetical communities.

The Onsala Twin TelescopeConstruction of the two new 13.2 m diameter radio telescopes, for geodetic VLBI, started in 2015. The first test observations with the new telescopes, the Onsala Twin Telescope (OTT), will begin in 2016. The OTT will follow the new

Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) is the Swedish National Facility for Radio Astronomy. In Onsala, the observatory operates two parabolic radio telescopes, a 25 m diameter cm-wave dish and a 20 m diameter mm-wave dish, and the Swedish LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) station. The observatory is also one of three partners in the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), a 12 m diameter submillimetre-wave telescope in Chile, and provides the channel through which Sweden is involved in large international radio astronomy projects, such as EVN (European VLBI Network), LOFAR, ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array), and SKA (Square Kilometre Array). Geoscience activities are also a part of the mission of the observatory. The equipment consists of receivers for GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems), several tide gauge sensors, a superconducting gravimeter, a seismometer, and radiometers for aeronomy. The 20 m telescope is partly used for geodetic VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry).

international VGOS (VLBI Geodetic Observing System) recommendations, and lead to improved measurement accuracy: 1 mm for station position and 0.1 mm/yr for station velocity.

New tide gaugeA new super tide gauge, built in cooperation with the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological In-stitute (SMHI), was inaugurated on 17 September 2015. It is also a site in SMHI:s national network, and must have a high reliability. Therefore, it measures sea level with two methods simultane-ously: with a radar and with a so called bubble sensor. The super tide gauge measures the sea level relative to the Earth’s crust. It complements the experimental GNSS tide gauge in Onsala, which measures sea level relative to the Earth’s centre of gravity by using GNSS receivers.

GravimetersThe permanently operating superconducting gravimeter in Onsala determines gravity changes due to e.g. tides, atmosphere, and mass redistribu-tion in the environment, but even polar motion. For secular changes like post-glacial isostatic ad-justment, other instruments that measure gravity in an absolute sense (however with less resolution in every single observation) are needed. Two such instruments visited the gravity laboratory in Feb-ruary 2015: a novel gravimeter based on neutral-atom optical interferometry (GAIN). In parallel the convential, falling corner-cube gravimeter FG5X from Leibniz University Hannover was

Director John Conway

Spectrum of HDO (and other molecules) in Orion obtained with the new 4 mm receiver on the Onsala 20 m telescope.

Visiting gravimeters and their electronic equipment in the OSO gravity laboratory. Photos: Hans-Georg Scherneck

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operated. It shows in the background, belittled of the tall free-fall assembly of GAIN (left picture) and its racks (right).

Other activities in OnsalaObservations of, e.g., pulsars with the LOFAR station in Onsala continued in 2015, both as a part of the International LOFAR Telescope and in stand-alone mode. The 20 m and 25 m telescopes participated in astronomical VLBI observations, mainly within the European VLBI Network (EVN). The VLBI technique is being developed to larger bandwidths and higher data transfer rates. An example is the DIVA project within RadioNet, where data transfer at 32 Gbit/s were tested between OSO and Noto in Italy.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is now in its design phase. Chalmers and OSO are part of two design consortia. Within the Wide-band Single Pixel Feeds (WBSPF) consortium, OSO is designing a feed horn for 4.6–26 GHz. The project has passed a System Requirement Review. Within the Dish consortium, OSO has designed a feeder, worked on a prototype cry-ostat, and tested low-noise amplifiers, all for the 350–1050 MHz band.

The outreach activities have continued, with, e.g., school classes and other groups visiting the obser-vatory, as described elsewhere in this report.

APEXA new instrument called SEPIA, with room for three receivers, was installed on APEX in early 2015. The first receiver, for 158–211 GHz, was installed at the same time. This frequency band includes an important spectral line of water at 183 GHz, but also many transitions of other molecules of large astrophysical interest. Due to the water vapour in Earth’s atmosphere, the 183 GHz water line can only be observed from dry sites at high altitudes, like Chajnantor where APEX is situated. The SEPIA recevier was built by the Group for Advanced Receiver Development (GARD), and is based on an ALMA band 5 receiver (also developed by GARD).

A special call for science verification observa-tions with the new SEPIA receiver was issued early 2015, requiring a principal investigator with a Swedish affiliation. Later, SEPIA was also offered to the whole scientific community for nor-mal observations. In total, more than 30 requests for observations with SEPIA on Swedish APEX time were made in 2015.

Observations with the SuperCam visiting instru-ment (a 64-pixel 345 GHz heterodyne array built

by the University of Arizona and installed in the autumn of 2014), continued during the spring of 2015. SuperCam is useful for mapping wide areas in the CO(3–2) line, e.g., the Galactic Plane and the Magellanic Clouds.

In total, 45 projects were observed at APEX dur-ing Swedish time in 2015. The principal investiga-tors of these projects were affiliated with research organisations and universities in 10 different countries. Most of the projects used the SHeFI heterodyne receiver, but also the new SEPIA receiver, the SuperCam array, and the bolometer cameras LABOCA and ArTeMiS were used. Like previous years, the projects covered a wide range of research topics, e.g., star formation, the Galac-tic interstellar medium, evolved stars, and galax-ies of different kinds. At least 64 refereed papers based on APEX data were published in 2015.

ALMAThe Nordic ARC node based at OSO has contin-ued to assist Nordic users of ALMA, e.g. through workshops arranged in Gothenburg and Uppsala. Several Nordic astronomers have also visited the ARC node in Onsala. The Nordic proposals to ALMA Cycle 3 were very successful: 27.5 % were accepted. The ARC node arranged a meeting in Smögen with 54 participants from the European ARC network, and is also heavily involved in the European verification of results from ALMA. A new technique to analyze ALMA data in order to study magnetic fields through the polarization of radiation has been developed at the obser-vatory. The technique was applied to ALMA observations of the active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the distant galaxy PKS 1830-211. An extremely powerful magnetic field, beyond anything previ-ously detected in the core of a galaxy, very close to the event horizon of the supermassive black hole in the AGN was revealed. The magnetic field is located precisely at the place where matter is suddenly boosted away from the black hole in the form of a jet. Never before has it been possible to study magnetic fields so close to the black hole in an AGN.

ALMA has detected a very strong magnetic field close to a supermassive black hole in distant galaxy. This artist’s impression shows such a black hole with its brilliant accretion disc, a high-speed jet and intense magnetic field. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

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PublicationsThe list contains peer reviewed journal publications that were actually published during 2015. The publications are presented for each research group and in alphabetical order based on the first author´s last name. A few publications with authors from more than one research group are listed in each group. In order to have a list of a reasonable size, we have chosen to only include peer reviewed journal publications on these pages. PhD and licentiate theses are presented on pages 8 and 9. A complete list for 2015, and in most cases also links to the full papers, can be found at: publications.lib.chalmers.se/cpl/lists/publications/departments.

Advanced Receiver Development

Belitsky, V.; Lapkin, I.; Fredrixon, M.; Sundin, E.; Helldner, L.; Pettersson, L.; Ferm, S.; Pantaleev, M.; Billade, B.; Bergman, P.; Olofsson, A.O.H.; Lerner, M.S.; Strandberg, M.; Whale, M.; Pavolotsky, A.; Flygare, J.; Olofsson, H.; Conway, J. (2015).A new 3 mm band receiver for the Onsala 20 m antenna.Astron. Astrophys., 580.

Trifonov, A.; Lubenchenko, A.; Polkin, V.; Pavolotsky, A.; et al. (2015).Difference in charge transport properties of Ni-Nb thin films with native and artificial oxide. J. Appl. Phys. 117, 1-6.

Yadranjee Aghdam, P.; Rashid, H.; Pavolotsky, A.; Desmaris, V.; Meledin, D.; Belitsky, V. (2015). Direct Measurement of Superconducting Tunnel Junction Capacitance. IEEE Trans. THz Sci. Technol. 5, 464-469.

Global Environmental Measurements and Modelling

Aires, F.; Prigent, C.; Orlandi, E.; ... ; Eriksson, P.; et al. (2015). Microwave hyperspectral measurements for temperature and humidity atmospheric profiling from satellite: The clear-sky case. J. Geophys. Res-Atmos. 120, 11334-11351.

Andersson, E.; Kahnert, M.; Devasthale, A. (2015). Methodology for evaluating lateral boundary conditions in the regional chemical transport model MATCH (v5.5.0) using combined satellite and ground-based observations. Geosci. Model Dev., 8, 3747-3763.

Bender, S.; Sinnhuber, M.; von Clarmann, T.; ... ; Urban, J.; Pérot, K.; et al. (2015). Comparison of nitric oxide measurements in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere from ACE-FTS, MIPAS, SCIAMACHY, and SMR. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 4171-4195.

Burton, S.P.; Hair, J.W.; Kahnert, M.; et al. (2015).Observations of the spectral dependence of linear particle depolarization ratio of aerosols using NASA Langley airborne High Spectral Resolution Lidar. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 13453-13473.

Christensen, O.M.; Eriksson, P.; Urban, J.; Murtagh, D.P.; et al. (2015). Tomographic retrieval of water vapour and temperature around polar mesospheric clouds using Odin-SMR. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 1981-1999.

Dore, A.J.; Carslaw, D.C.; Braban, C.; … ; Simpson, D.; et al. (2015). Evaluation of the performance of different atmospheric chemical transport models and inter-comparison of nitrogen and sulphur deposition estimates for the UK. Atmos. Environ., 119, 131-143.

Eriksson, P.; Jamali, M.; Mendrok, J.; et al. (2015). On the microwave optical properties of randomly oriented ice hydrometeors. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 1913-1933.

Fytterer, T.; Mlynczak, M.G.; Nieder, H.; Pérot, K.; … ; Urban, J.; et al. (2015). Energetic particle induced intra-seasonal variability of ozone inside the Antarctic polar vortex observed in satellite data. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 3327-3338.

Galligani, V.S.; Prigent, C.; Defer, E.; … ; Eriksson, P.; et al. (2015). Meso-scale modelling and radiative transfer simulations of a snowfall event over France at microwaves for passive and active modes and evaluation with satellite observations. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 1605-1616.

Isoz, O.; Buehler, S.A.; Eriksson, P. (2015). Intercalibration of microwave temperature sounders using radio occultation measurements. J. Geophys. Res-Atmos., 120, 3758-3773.

Kahnert, M. (2015). Modelling radiometric properties of inhomogeneous mineral dust particles: Applicability and limitations of effective medium theories. J. Quant. Spectrosc. Ra., 152, 16-27.

Kirkwood, S.; Osepian, A.; Belova, E.; Urban, J.; Pérot, K.; et al. (2015). Ionization and NO production in the polar mesosphere during high-speed solar wind streams: model validation and comparison with NO enhancements observed by Odin-SMR. Ann. Geophys., 33, 561-572.

Moradi, I.; Ferraro, R.R.; Eriksson, P.; et al. (2015). Intercalibration and Validation of Observations from ATMS and SAPHIR Microwave Sounders. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 53, 5915-5925.

Moradi, I.; Ferraro, R.R.; Soden, B.; Eriksson, P.; et al. (2015). Retrieving Layer-Averaged Tropospheric Humidity from Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder Water Vapor Channels. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 53, 6675-6688.

Navas-Guzman, F.; Kampfer, N.; Murk, A.; … ; Eriksson, P.; et al. (2015). Zeeman effect in atmospheric O-2 measured by ground-based microwave radiometry. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 1863-1874.

Rahpoe, N.; Weber, M.; Rozanov, A.V.; ... ; Urban, J.; Murtagh, D.P; et al. (2015). Relative drifts and biases between six ozone limb satellite measurements from the last decade. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 4369-4381.

Thomas, M.; Kahnert, M.; Andersson, C.; et al (2015). Integration of prognostic aerosol-cloud interactions in a chemistry transport model coupled offline to a regional climate model. Geosci. Model Dev., 8, 1885-1898.

Optical Remote Sensing

Beecken, J.; Mellqvist, J.; Salo, K.; Ekholm, J.; et al. (2015). Emission factors of SO2, NOx and particles from ships in Neva Bay from ground-based and helicopter-borne measurements and AIS-based modeling. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 5229-5241.

© NASA

Photo: Bo Galle

Photo: Victor Belitsky

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Bobrowski, N.; von Glasow, R.; Giuffrida, G.B.; … ; Arellano, S.; … ; Galle, B.; et al. (2015). Gas emission strength and evolution of the molar ratio of BrO/SO2 in the plume of Nyiragongo in comparison to Etna. J. Geophys. Res-Atmos., 120, 277-291.

Hidalgo, S.; Battaglia, J.; Arellano, S.; … ; Galle, B.; et al. (2015). SO2 degassing at Tungurahua volcano (Ecuador) between 2007 and 2013: Transition from continuous to episodic activity. J. Volcanol. Geotherm. Res., 298, 1-14.

Vigouroux, C.; Blumenstock, T.; Coffey, M.; ... ; Mellqvist, J.; ... ; Persson, G.; et al. (2015). Trends of ozone total columns and vertical distribution from FTIR observations at eight NDACC stations around the globe. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 2915-2933.

Zelenski, M.; Taran, Y.; Galle, B. (2015). High emission rate of sulfuric acid from Bezymianny volcano, Kamchatka. Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 7005-7013.

Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy

Anderson, D.; Desaix, M. (2015). Introduction to direct variational and moment methods and an application to the Child-Langmuir law.Eur. J. Phys., 2015, 065032.

Anderson, J.; Botha, G.J.J. (2015). Statistical properties of Charney-Hasegawa-Mima zonal flows. Phys. Plasmas, 22, 052305.

Eriksson, F.; Nyqvist, R.; Lilley, M. (2015). Kinetic theory of phase space plateaux in a non-thermal energetic particle distribution. Phys. Plasmas, 22, 092126.

Imbeaux, F.; Pinches, S.D.; Lister, J.B.; … ; Strand, P. et al. (2015). Design and first applications of the ITER integrated modelling & analysis suite. Nucl. Fusion, 55.

Jarmén, A.; Anderson, J.; Malinov, P. (2015). Effects of parallel ion motion on electromagnetic toroidal ion temperature gradient modes in a fluid model. Phys. Plasmas, 22, 082508.

Liu, Y.; Akers, R.; Chapman, I.T.; et al. (2015). Modelling toroidal rotation damping in ITER due to external 3D fields. Nucl. Fusion, 55.

Moradi, S.; Anderson, J.; Gurcan, Ö. (2015). Predator-prey model for the self-organization of stochastic oscillators in dual populations. Physi. Rev. E. Stat. Nonlin. Soft Matter Phys., 92, 062930.

Olsson, O.; Billeter, M.; Sintorn, E.; et al. (2015). More Efficient Virtual Shadow Maps for Many Lights. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graphics, 21, 701-713.

Yadykin, D.; Frassinetti, L.; Delabie, E.; et al. (2015). Studies of the non-axisymmetric plasma boundary displacement in JET in presence of externally applied magnetic field. Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion, 57.

Radar Remote Sensing

Berg, A.; Dammert, P.; Eriksson, L.E.B. (2015). X-Band Interferometric SAR Observations of Baltic Fast Ice. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens., 53, 1248-1256.

Santoro, M.; Eriksson, L.E.B.; Fransson, J. (2015). Reviewing ALOS PALSAR Backscatter Observations for Stem Volume Retrieval in Swedish Forest. Remote Sens., 4290-4317.

Soja, M.J.; Persson, H.; Ulander, L.M.H. (2015). Estimation of Forest Biomass from Two-Level Model Inversion of Single-Pass InSAR Data. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens., 53, 5083-5099.

Soja, M.J.; Persson, H.; Ulander, L.M.H. (2015). Estimation of Forest Height and Canopy Density from a Single InSAR Correlation Coefficient. IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett., 12, 646-650.

Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Swedish National Facility for Radio Astronomy

Aalto, S.; Garcia-Burillo, S.; Muller, S.; … ; Costagliola, F.; et al. (2015). High resolution observations of HCN and HCO+J = 3–2 in the disk and outflow of Mrk 231 -- Detection of vibrationally excited HCN in the warped nucleus. Astron. Astrophys., 574, 85.

Aalto, S.; Martin, S.; Costagliola, F.; ... ; Muller, S.; et al. (2015). Probing highly obscured, self-absorbed galaxy nuclei with vibrationally excited HCN. Astron. Astrophys., 584.

Agertz, O.; Romeo, A.; Grisdale, K. (2015). Characterizing gravitational instability in turbulent multicomponent galactic discs. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 449, 2156-2166.

Alatalo, K.; Crocker, A.F.; Aalto, S.; et al. (2015). Evidence of boosted 13CO/12CO ratio in early-type galaxies in dense environments. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 450, 3874-3885.

Amanullah, R.; Johansson, J.; Goobar, A.; … ; Varenius, E.; … ; Wallström, S.; Wiegert, J.; et al. (2015). Diversity in extinction laws of Type Ia supernovae measured between 0.2 and 2 μm. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 453, 3300-3328.

Azulay, R.; Guirado, J.; Marcaide, J.; Marti-Vidal, I.; et al. (2015). Dynamical masses of the low-mass stellar binary AB Doradus B.Astron. Astrophys., 578, A16.

Belitsky, V.; Lapkin, I.; Fredrixon, M.; Sundin, E.; Helldner, L.; Pettersson, L.; Ferm, S.; Pantaleev, M.; Billade, B.; Bergman, P.; Olofsson, A.O.H.; Lerner, M.S.; Strandberg, M.; Whale, M.; Pavolotsky, A.; Flygare, J.; Olofsson, H.; Conway, J. (2015). A new 3 mm band receiver for the Onsala 20 m antenna. Astron. Astrophys., 580.

Bockelée-Morvan, D.; Calmonte, U.; Charnley, S.; … ; Wirström, E.; et al. (2015). Cometary Isotopic Measurements. Space Sci. Rev., 197, 47-83.

Boquien, M.; Calzetti, D.; Aalto, S.; et al. (2015). Measuring star formation with resolved observations: the test case of M 33.Astron. Astrophys., 578.

Bouchet, P.; Garcia-Marin, M.; Lagage, P.O.; … ; Justtanont, K.; et al. (2015). The Mid-Infrared Instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope, III: MIRIM, The MIRI Imager. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac., 127, 612-622.

Cabrera, J.; Csizmadia, S.; Montagnier, G.; Fridlund, M.; et al. (2015). Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission: XXVII. CoRoT-28b, a planet orbiting an evolved star, and CoRoT-29b, a planet showing an asymmetric transit. Astron. Astrophys., 579.

Camps, P.; Misselt, K.; Bianchi, S.; Lunttila, T.; et al. (2015). Benchmarking the calculation of stochastic heating and emissivity of dust grains in the context of radiative transfer simulations. Astron. Astrophys., 580.

Carozzi, T. (2015). Imaging on a sphere with interferometers: The spherical wave harmonic transform. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. Letters., 451, L6-L10.

Carrasco-Gonzalez, C.; Torrelles, J.M.; Canto, J.; ... ; Vlemmings, W.; et al. (2015). Observing the onset of outflow collimation in a massive protostar.Science, 348, 114-117.

Coppin, K.E.K.; Geach, J.; Almaini, O.; … ; Knudsen, K.K.; et al. (2015). The SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey: the submillimetre properties of Lyman-break galaxies at z=3-5.Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 446, 1293-1304.

Costagliola, F.; Sakamoto, K.; Muller, S.; ... ; Aalto, S.; et al. (2015). Exploring the molecular chemistry and excitation in obscured luminous infrared galaxies -- An ALMA mm-wave spectral scan of NGC 4418. Astron. Astrophys., 582, A91.

Photo: Leif Eriksson

Photo: Jens Dahlström

22

Csizmadia, S.; Hatzes, A.; Gandolfi, D.; ... ; Fridlund, M.; et al. (2015). Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission XXVIII. CoRoT-33b, an object in the brown dwarf desert with 2:3 commensurability with its host star. Astron. Astrophys., 584.

Danilovich, T.; Olofsson, G.; Black, J.H.; Justtanont, K.; Olofsson, H. (2015). Classifying the secondary component of the binary star W Aquilae. Astron. Astrophys., 574, A23.

Danilovich, T.; Teyssier, D.; Justtanont, K.; Olofsson, H.; et al. (2015). New observations and models of circumstellar CO line emission of AGB stars in the Herschel SUCCESS programme.Astron. Astrophys., 581.

De Beck, E.; Vlemmings, W.; Muller, S.; Black, J.H.; O’Gorman, E.; ... ; Maercker, M.; et al. (2015). ALMA observations of TiO2 around VY Canis Majoris. Astron. Astrophys., 580.

Emonts, B.H.C.; De Breuck, C.; Lehnert, M.D.; … ; Drouart, G.; et al. (2015). The Dragonfly Galaxy II. ALMA unveils a triple merger and gas exchange in a hyper-luminous radio galaxy at z=2. Astron. Astrophys., 584.

Emonts, B.H.C.; Mao, M.Y.; Stroe, A.; ... ; Drouart, G.; et al. (2015). A CO-rich merger shaping a powerful and hyperluminous infrared radio galaxy at z=2: the Dragonfly Galaxy. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 451, 1025-1035.

Falstad, N.; González-Alfonso, E.; Aalto, S.; et al. (2015). Herschel spectroscopic observations of the compact obscured nucleus in Zw 049.057. Astron. Astrophys., 580, A52.

Fathi, K.; Izumi, T.; Romeo, A.; … ; Aalto, S.; et al. (2015). Local instability signatures in ALMA observations of dense gas in NGC 7469. Astrophys. J., 806, L34.

Finet, F.; Elyiv, A.; Melnyk, O.; ... ; Horellou, C.; et al. (2015). Predicted multiply imaged X-ray AGNs in the XXL survey. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 452, 1480-1492.

Fomalont, E.B.; Vlahakis, C.; Corder, S.; … ; Conway, J.; ... ; Maercker, M.; ... ; Marti-Vidal, I.; ... ; O’Gorman, E.; ... ; Vlemmings, W.; et al. (2015). The 2014 ALMA long baseline campaign: an overview. Astrophys. J. Letters., 808.

Foster, G.; Karastergiou, A.; Paulin, R.; Carozzi, T.; et al. (2015).Intrinsic instrumental polarization and high-precision pulsar timing. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 453, 1489-1502.

Frey, S.; Paragi, Z.; Fogasy, J.; et al. (2015). The first estimate of radio jet proper motion at z > 5. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 446, 2921-2928.

García-Burillo, S.; Combes, F.; Usero, A.; Aalto, S.; ... ; Costagliola, F.; et al. (2015). High-resolution imaging of the molecular outflows in two mergers: IRAS 17208-0014 and NGC 1614. Astron. Astrophys., 580.

Gandolfi, D.; Parviainen, H.; Deeg, H.J.; ... ; Fridlund, M.; et al. (2015). Kepler-423b: a half-Jupiter mass planet transiting a very old solar-like star. Astron. Astrophys., 576.

Goicoechea, J.; Teyssier, D.; Etxaluze, M.; … ; Black, J.H.; ... ; Persson, C.M.; et al. (2015). Velocity-resolved [C II] emission and [C II]/FIR mapping along orion with Herschel. Astrophys. J., 812, 75.

Gonzalez-Alfonso, E.; Fischer, J.; Sturm, E.; … ; Aalto, S.; Falstad, N.; et al. (2015). High-lying oh absorption, [C II] deficits, and extreme LFIR/MH2 ratios in galaxies. Astrophys. J., 800.

Grenier, I.; Black, J.H.; Strong, A. (2015). The nine lives of cosmic rays in galaxies. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys., 53, 199-246.

Hajigholi, M.; Persson, C.M.; Wirström, E.; Black, J.H.; Bergman, P.; Olofsson, A.O.H.; Olberg, M.; … ; Hjalmarsson, Å.; et al. (2015). On the accretion process in a high-mass star forming region - A multitransitional THz Herschel-HIFI study of ammonia toward G34.26+0.15. Astron. Astrophys., 585, 20.

Harada, N.; Riquelme, D.; Viti, S.; ... ; Aladro, R.; et al. (2015). Chemical features in the circumnuclear disk of the Galactic center. Astron. Astrophys., 584.

Heald, G.H.; Pizzo, R.F.; Orru, E.; … ; Varenius, E.; … ; Conway, J.; et al. (2015). The LOFAR Multifrequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS) I. Survey description and first results. Astron. Astrophys., 582, 22.

Homan, W.; Decin, L.; de Koter, A.; ... ; Vlemmings, W.; et al. (2015). Simplified models of stellar wind anatomy for interpreting high-resolution data Analytical approach to embedded spiral geometries. Astron. Astrophys., 579.

Indriolo, N.; Neufeld, D.; Gerin, M.; … ; Black, J.H.; ... ; Persson, C.M.; et al. (2015). Herschel Survey of Galactic OH+, H2O+, and H3O+: Probing the Molecular Hydrogen Fraction and Cosmic-Ray Ionization Rate.Astrophys. J., 800, 40.

Izumi, T.; Kohno, K.; Aalto, S.; et al. (2015). Alma observations of the submillimeter dense molecular gas tracers in the luminous type-1 active nucleus of NGC 7469. Astrophys. J., 811, 39.

Justtanont, K.; Barlow, M.J.; Blommaert, J.; ... ; Olofsson, H.; et al. (2015). Herschel observations of extreme OH/IR stars: The isotopic ratios of oxygen as a sign-post for the stellar mass. Astron. Astrophys., 578.

Kanekar, N.; Ubachs, W.; Menten, K.M.; … ; Muller, S.; et al. (2015). Constraints on changes in the proton-electron mass ratio using methanol lines. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 448, L104-L108.

Keimpema, A.; Kettenis, M.; Pogrebenko, S.; … ; Yang, J. et al. (2015). The SFXC software correlator for very long baseline interferometry: algorithms and implementation. Exp. Astron., 39, 259-279.

Kirsten, F.; Vlemmings, W.; Campbell, R.M.; et al. (2015).Revisiting the birth locations of pulsars B1929+10, B2020+28, and B2021+51. Astron. Astrophys., 577.

Lindroos, L.; Knudsen, K.K.; Vlemmings, W.; Conway, J.; Marti-Vidal, I. (2015). Stacking of large interferometric data sets in the image- and uv-domain – a comparative study. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 446, 3502-3515.

Liseau, R.; Larsson, B. (2015). Search for HOOH in Orion. Astron. Astrophys., 583, A53.

Liseau, R.; Larsson, B.; Lunttila, T.; Olberg, M.; Rydbeck, G.; Bergman, P.; Justtanont, K.; et al. (2015). Gas and dust in the star-forming region r Oph A. The dust opacity exponent b and the gas-to-dust mass ratio g2d. Astron. Astrophys., 578.

Liseau, R.; Vlemmings, W.; Bayo, A.; ... ; Black, J.H.; ... ; Fridlund, M.; Justtanont, K.; et al. (2015). ALMA observations of a Centauri. First detection of main-sequence stars at 3 mm wavelength. Astron. Astrophys., 573, L4.

Lykou, F.; Klotz, D.; Paladini, C.; … ; Maercker, M.; et al. (2015). Dissecting the AGB star L-2 Puppis: a torus in the making. Astron. Astrophys., 576.

Marti-Vidal, I.; Muller, S.; Vlemmings, W.; Horellou, C.; Aalto, S. (2015) A strong magnetic field in the jet base of a supermassive black hole. Science, 348, 311-314.

Matsushita, S.; Trung, D-V.; Boone, F.; ... ; Muller, S. (2015). Resolving the Bright HCN(1-0) Emission toward the Seyfert 2 Nucleus of M51: Shock Enhancement by Radio Jets and Weak Masing by Infrared Pumping? Astrophys. J., 799, 26.

Matthews, B.C.; Kennedy, G.; Sibthorpe, B.; … ; Fridlund, M.; et al. (2015). The AU Mic Debris Disk: Far-Infrared and Submillimeter Resolved Imaging. Astrophys. J., 811, 100.

McDonald, I.; Zijlstra, A.A.; Lagadec, E.; … ; Justtanont, K.; Olofsson, H.; et al. (2015). ALMA reveals sunburn: CO dissociation around AGB stars in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 453, 4324-4336.

Moldon, J.; Deller, A.T.; Wucknitz, O.; ... ; Carozzi, T.; Conway, J.; ... ; Varenius, E.; et al. (2015). The LOFAR long baseline snapshot calibrator survey. Astron. Astrophys., 574, A73.

Müller, H.S.P.; Muller, S.; Schilke, P.; … ; Black, J.H.; et al. (2015).Detection of extragalactic argonium, ArH+, toward PKS 1830-211. Astron. Astrophys., 582, 4.

Neufeld, D.; Black, J.H.; Gerin, M.; ... ; Persson, C.M.; et al. (2015).Herschel observations of interstellar chloronium. Ii. Detections toward G29.96-0.02, W49N, W51, and W3(OH), and determinations of the ortho-to-para and 35Cl/37Cl isotopic ratios. Astrophys. J., 807.

Ning, T.; Haas, R.; Elgered, G. (2015). Determination of the local tie vector between the VLBI and GNSS reference points at Onsala using GPS measurements. J. Geodesy., 89, 711-723.

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O’Gorman, E.; Harper, G.M.; Brown, A.; ... ; Vlemmings, W.; et al. (2015). Temporal evolution of the size and temperature of Betelgeuse’s extended atmosphere. Astron. Astrophys., 580.

O’Gorman, E.; Vlemmings, W.; Richards, A.M.S.; ... ; De Beck, E.; … ; Muller, S.; et al. (2015). ALMA observations of anisotropic dust mass loss in the inner circumstellar environment of the red supergiant VY Canis Majoris. Astron. Astrophys., 573, L1.

Olmi, L.; Persson, C.M.; Codella, C. (2015). Herschel-HIFI observations of H2O, NH3, and N2H+ toward high-mass starless and protostellar clumps identified by the Hi-GAL survey. Astron. Astrophys., 583, A125.

Olofsson, H.; Bergman, P.; Lindqvist, M. (2015). Detection of Cl line emission from the detached CO shell of the AGB star R Sculptoris. Astron. Astrophys., 582, 8.

Olofsson, H.; Vlemmings, W.; Maercker, M.; … ; Lindqvist, M.; et al. (2015). ALMA view of the circumstellar environment of the post-common-envelope-evolution binary system HD 101584. Astron. Astrophys., 576.

Orru, E.; van Velzen, S.; Pizzo, R.F.; … ; Conway, J.; et al. (2015).Wide-field LOFAR imaging of the field around the double-double radio galaxy B1834+620 A fresh view on a restarted AGN and doubeltjes. Astron. Astrophys., 584.

Privon, G.C.; Herrero-Illana, R.; Evans, A.S; ... ; Aalto, S.; ... ; Conway, J.; et al. (2015). Excitation mechanisms for hcn(1-0) and HCO+ (1-0) in galaxies from the great observatories all-sky lirg survey. Astrophys. J., 814.

Rieke, G.H.; Wright, G.S.; Boker, T.; ... ; Justtanont, K.; et al. (2015). The Mid-Infrared Instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope, I: Introduction. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac., 127, 584-594.

Rocca-Volmerange, B.; Drouart, G.; De Breuck, C. (2015). Supernova remnant mass accumulated during the star formation history of the z=3.8 Radio galaxies 4c41.17 And tn j2007-1316. Astrophys. J. Letters., 803.

Romeo, A.; Fathi, K. (2015). A double molecular disc in the triple-barred starburst galaxy NGC 6946: structure and stability.Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 451, 3107-3116.

Rosenberg, M.J.F.; van der Werf, P.P.; Aalto, S.; et al. (2015).The Herschel Comprehensive (U)lirg Emission Survey (Hercules): Co Ladders, Fine Structure Lines, and Neutral Gas Cooling. Astrophys. J., 801, 2.

Sandqvist, A.; Larsson, B.; Hjalmarson, Å.; … ; Liseau, R.; et al. (2015). Herschel HIFI observations of the Sgr A+50 km s(-1) Cloud Deep searches for O-2 in emission and foreground absorption. Astron. Astrophys., 584.

Sanna, A.; Surcis, G.; Moscadelli, L.; ... ; Vlemmings, W. et al. (2015). Velocity and magnetic fields within 1000 AU of a massive YSO.Astron. Astrophys., 583, L3.

Schulz, A.; Henkel, C.; Menten, K.M.; Muller, S.; et al. (2015). The inhomogeneous ISM toward PKS 1830–211 SW: A detailed view of molecular gas at a look-back time of 7.5 Gyr. Astron. Astrophys., 574, 108.

Shulevski, A.; Morganti, R.; Barthel, P.D.; ... ; Horellou, C.; ... ; Conway, J.; et al. (2015). AGN duty cycle estimates for the ultra-steep spectrum radio relic VLSS J1431.8+1331. Astron. Astrophys., 583, A89.

Simpson, J.; Smail, I.; Swinbank, A.; … ; Knudsen, K.K.; et al. (2015). The scuba-2 cosmology legacy survey: alma resolves the bright-end of the sub-millimeter number counts.Astrophys. J., 807.

Surcis, G.; Vlemmings, W.; van Langevelde, H.; et al. (2015). EVN observations of 6.7 GHz methanol maser polarization in massive star-forming regions: III. the flux-limited sample. Astron. Astrophys., 578.

Torchinsky, S.A.; Olofsson, A.O.H.; Censier, B.; et al. (2015). EMBRACE@Nançay: An ultra wide field of view prototype for the SKA. J. Inst., 10.

Varenius, E.; Conway, J.; Marti-Vidal, I.; … ; Carozzi, T.; ... ; Aalto,S.; ... ; Horellou, C.; et al. (2015). Subarcsecond international LOFAR radio images of the M82 nucleus at 118 MHz and 154 MHz. Astron. Astrophys., 574, A114.

Vlemmings, W.; Ramstedt, S.; O’Gorman, E.; et al. (2015). Resolving the stellar activity of the Mira AB binary with ALMA. Astron. Astrophys., 577.

Wagner, J.; Roy, A.; Krichbaum, T.; ... ; Bergman, P.; Conway, J.; Haas, R.; Johansson, J.; Lindqvist, M.; Olofsson, H.; Pantaleev, M.; et al. (2015). First 230? GHz VLBI fringes on 3C 279 using the APEX Telescope (Research Note). Astron. Astrophys., 581.

Wallström, S.; Muller, S.; Lagadec, E.; Black, J.H.; ... ; Justtanont, K.; et al. (2015). Investigating the nature of the Fried Egg nebula: CO mm-line and optical spectroscopy of IRAS 17163–3907. Astron. Astrophys., 574, A139.

Watson, D.; Christensen, L.; Knudsen, K.K.; et al. (2015). A dusty, normal galaxy in the epoch of reionization. Nature, 519, 327-330.

Wedemeyer, S.; Bastian, T.; Brajša, R.; ... ; Black, J.H.; et al. (2015). SSALMON - The Solar Simulations for the Atacama Large Millimeter Observatory Network. Adv. Space Res. 56, 2679-2692.

Wells, M.; Pel, J.W.; Glasse, A.; ... ; Justtanont, K.; et al. (2015) he Mid-Infrared Instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope, VI: The Medium Resolution Spectrometer. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac., 127, 646-664.

Willacy, K.; Alexander, C.; Ali-Dib, M.; … ; Wirström, E. et al. (2015). The Composition of the Protosolar Disk and the Formation Conditions for Comets. Space Sci. Rev., 197, 151-190.

Wright, G.S.; Wright, D.; Goodson, G.B.; ... ; Justtanont, K.; et al. (2015). The Mid-Infrared Instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope, II: Design and Build. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac., 127, 595-611.

Young, A.; Wijnholds, S.J.; Carozzi, T.; et al. (2015).Efficient correction for both direction-dependent and baseline-dependent effects in interferometric imaging: An A-stacking framework. Astron. Astrophys., 577.

Xu, C.K.; Cao, C.; Lu, N.; … ; Aalto, S.; et al. (2015). ALMA observations of warm dense gas in NGC 1614-breaking of the star formation law in the central kiloparsec. Astrophys. J., 799.

Östlin, G.; Marquart, T.; Cumming, R.J.; et al. (2015). Kinematics of Haro 11: The miniature Antennae. Astron. Astrophys., 583, A55.

Space Geodesy and Geodynamamics

Hobiger, T.; Rieck, C.; Haas, R.; et al (2015). Combining GPS and VLBI for inter-continental frequency transfer. Metrologia, 52, 251-261.

Kareinen, N.; Haas, R. (2015). Experience from geodetic very long baseline interferometry observations at Onsala using a digital backend. J. Geod. Sci., 5, 26-34.

Kareinen, N.; Hobiger, T.; Haas, R. (2015). Automated analysis of Kokee–Wettzell Intensive VLBI sessions—algorithms, results, and recommendations. Earth Planets Space, 67.

Ning, T.; Haas, R.; Elgered, G. (2015). Determination of the local tie vector between the VLBI and GNSS reference points at Onsala using GPS measurements. J. Geodesy., 89, 711-723.

Olsson, P-A.; Milne, G.A.; Scherneck, H-G.; et al. (2015).The relation between gravity rate of change and vertical displacement in previously glaciated areas. J. Geodyn., 83, 76-84.

Timmen, L.; Engfeldt, A. & Scherneck, H-G. (2015). Observed secular gravity trend at Onsala station with the FG5 gravimeter from Hannover. J. Geod. Sci., 5, 1-8.

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Public Outreach

During 2015 we initiated and produced the online material for two new Chalmers MOOCs (massive open online courses), Sensing Planet Earth — (1) from Core to Outer Space and (2) Water and Ice. The courses will be given on the edX web portal during February–April 2016 and the target audience is teachers and students at the upper secondary school level as well as the general public in order to stimulate the interest and knowledge of our planet.

In total 1889 people visited the observatory in Onsala, its telescopes and exhibition. School groups of all ages accounted for 27 of the tours. We also supported a small number of visits and Skype conversations with school classes. In October we hosted two work experience (prao) students. Many visitors to Onsala came as part of two public open days, during the Gothenburg Science Festival and on the open house the last Sunday in May. Fifty invited guests attended the inauguration of the super tide gauge in September. During both the Science Festival and on Mother’s Day and Night of Astronomy in October, we organised and co-organised many talks and other events in Gothenburg and in Kungsbacka.

Our SALSA radio telescopes were booked for an average of 24 hours per week, on average 4.5 h per booking, by students, teachers and amateur astronomers from Sweden and from as far away as the US, Bangladesh and Honduras. Most users study the movements of interstellar gas in the Milky Way. We provided supervision for a number of Swedish high school projects using SALSA.

We communicated news from scientists to the media in collaboration with Chalmers press office and with ESO. News reports from Sweden and around the world reported on the super tide gauge, LOFAR’s image of galaxy M82, ALMA’s discovery of strong magnetic fields near a supermassive black hole, a surprisingly dusty galaxy in the early universe, evidence of activity on the red giant star Mira, and the installation of Sepia on APEX. We handled many media enquiries on astronomical topics and were regularly quoted in news media. We provided support to the SKA Key Science meeting in Stockholm in August 2015, and during the year communicated news about SKA via the project’s Swedish website. In October we hosted a meeting of the EU-funded network RadioNet3’s outreach project, and helped finalise the production of a comic book for young people (“Eagle View Network”) about the history of the European VLBI Network. We translated “Invisible Universe”, a workbook on radio astronomy for primary schools.

GARD guided pupils of ages 10–13 from schools in the Göteborg area in the cleanroom facility during the yearly Science Festival. Through hands-on microelectronics experiments the pupils became “nanoscientists for a day”.

In our outreach programme we engage with the public in order to communicate the excitement and importance of science to people of all ages.

Sensing Planet Earth: Water and Ice

Sensing Planet Earth: From Core to Outer Space

25

Facts and Figures

External funding (SEK 1,000) 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011

Swedish Research Council 51,921 46,128 46,006 49,007 50,654

European Community 9,185 11,821 6,238 12,885 12,378

Swedish National Space Board 18,251 16,516 17,429 12,621 10,898

Other 11,741 9,863 10,735 7,413 8,345

Intl. Org. – ESA, ESO, CNES 7,821 - 7,404 2,391 1,548

VINNOVA (Swedish Govt. Agency for Innovation Systems) 1,817 2,547 4,553 4,112 4,537

Total 100,736 95,318 92,365 88,429 90,342

Personnel (Dec 31) 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011

Professors 16 15 14 12 11

Adjunct professors 6 7 7 6 5

Associate professors/ University lecturers 9 10 8 10 10

Assistant professors 1 1 3 3 4

Researchers 3 3 2 2 5

Post doc 20 13 10 8 1

Research engineers 28 26 24 21 21

Technical staff 15 12 12 16 13

Administrative staff 7 7 7 7 8

Doctoral students 27 25 30 31 36

Ammanuens 1 - – 2 –

Total 133 121 117 118 114

Income (SEK 1,000) 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011

Research grants 95,977 91,513 90,298 86,816 88,868

Research, faculty funding 41,339 41,543 38,099 37,561 35,195

First degree & master’s studies 7,637 7,720 6,602 5,980 6,394

Other 4,419 2,308 4,003 3,531 4,040

Chalmers foundation 1,481 1,771 – 125 524

Total 150,853 144,855 139,002 136,025 135,021

Used grants (SEK 1,000) 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011

Personnel 85,490 78,622 74,068 68,504 67,284

Internal overhead, IT, etc. 18,232 17,561 17,410 18,144 17,492

Fees (APEX, JIVE, etc.) 10,043 10,322 9,274 9,580 7,680

Premises 8,780 9,505 9,322 8,656 8,776

Other 14,372 12,724 14,279 12,685 19,959

Investments 6,325 5,919 6,174 6,472 5,130

Travel 5,816 4,110 4,086 3,818 4,500

Total 149,058 138,763 134,613 127,859 130,821

2015

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Organisation

Departmental Advisory Group

The advisory team’s task is to identify and take a standpoint on overall strategic issues that are of relevance to the long-term development of the department, and to support the department’s steering group in other matters that may arise. The team met three times during 2015.

External representatives 2015•Göran Netzler, Chairman•Göran Berndes, Chalmers’ President’s representative•Thomas Lewin, Ericsson Research•Sven Grahn, Swedish Space Corporation•Marie Rådbo, University of Gothenburg

Internal representatives 2015•Gunnar Elgered, Head of Department•Camilla Andersson, Secretary•Alessandro Romeo, Teachers’ representative•Leif Eriksson, Teachers’ representative•Alexey B. Pavolotsky, Technical/Administrative

staff’s representative•Niklas Falstad, PhD Student’s representative•Emil Rosenberg, Students’ representative•Filippa Hallqvist, Students’ representative•Kirsten Kraiberg Knudsen, Substitute teachers’

representative

Local Collaboration Group

The Local Collaboration Group is a forum for discussing all issues concerning the management of the department: appointment of staff members, matters related to the premises and general working conditions, including the work environment (physical as well as psychosocial) and gender equality.

The group consist of the Head of Department, the Head of Administration and Finance, the Personnel Officer, three representatives from our unions, a work environment ombudsman and an equality ombudsman, and meets every sixth week.

Management GroupThe management group handles strategic as well as operational matters for the department as a whole. It meets every third week. The group consists of: the Head of Department, the Deputy Head, the Vice Head, a Secretary, the Head of Administration and Finance, the Personnel Officer, the Director of the Onsala Space Observatory and our seven research group leaders.

Teaching StaffThe teaching staff had on the average over 2015 approximately 25 members. Johan Mellqvist was the Chairman and Arto Heikkilä was the Vice Chairman up to the summer. Thereafter, these tasks were taken over by Alessandro Romeo and Hans-Georg Scherneck, respectively. The group has an advisory function on research and educational issues and meets 4–5 times per year.

Local Collaboration Group

Administration(Ingrid Jakobson)

Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy

(Hans Nordman)

Advanced Receiver Development

(Victor Belitsky)

Radar Remote Sensing

(Leif Eriksson)

Global Environmental Measurements and

Modelling(Donal Murtagh)

Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics

(Susanne Aalto)

Optical Remote Sensing

(Bo Galle)

Space Geodesy and Geodynamics

(Rüdiger Haas)

Teaching staffManagement Group Departmental Advisory Group

Head of Department(Gunnar Elgered)

Deputy Head and Director of Graduate

Studies(Donal Murtagh)

HR Specialist(Sofie Jansson)

Onsala Space Observatory(John Conway)

The Swedish National Facility for Radio Astronomy

Vice Head and Director of

Undergraduate Studies

(Magnus Thomasson)

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•Ingrid Jakobson Head of Administration and Finance

•Maria Karlsson Department Financial Officer

•Katarina Norheim Financial Officer

•Camilla Andersson Administrator

•Paula Rosell Administrator

•Paulina Sjögren Administrator

•Oskar Ängermark Communications Officer

Administration and Finance

The group works with organisational and financial planning and follow-up, accounting, study administration, HR administration, purchasing, web and other forms of communication, as well as any other services needed by the research and teaching staff. On December 31 the group consisted of:

Photo: Magnus Thomasson

Antennas

Leif Eriksson and Wiebke Aldenhoff on the Swedish icebreaker Oden in the Arctic Ocean north of Svalbard. Frej, the second Swedish icebreaker on the expedition, can be seen in the background.

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Department of Earth and Space Sciences

Chalmers University of Technology

SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden

Telephone: +46 31-772 10 00

Internet: www.chalmers.se/rss